The Derby Vase Story

The vase idea was conceived on a 2014 visit to the Tower of London and the amazing installation "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red" - commemorating the centenary of the First World War. The installation consisted of 888,246 ceramic poppies. Each poppy represented a British military fatality during the war. Incidentally all of the poppies were made in Derby under the supervision of local artist Paul Cummins.

I wanted to share the experience by giving friends and family a poppy along with photographs of the installation. But there was nothing on the market at the time that would hold flowers and display photographs. So necessity became the mother of invention and I set about creating my own product.

Months of research lead to the elliptical shape which is perfectly sized to display the most popular photo format, 6x4 in a way that doesn't distort the image.

In an age where most of our treasured photographic memories now reside on hard disks and on social media sites I wanted to bring them out of the digital world and into our homes where they can be enjoyed by everybody.